Use the Incident Overview
Incident creation, command establishment, incident selection, and Incident Commander Initial Actions are persisted workflows. The user-facing briefing, Operational Period 01, incident completion, and incident cancellation workflows are not available yet. Objective, action, readiness, activity, resource, and timeline displays remain preview information while their operational workflows are built.
The Incident Overview gives assigned incident personnel a shared view of the current situation and operational period. It brings immediate priorities, objectives, command assignments, recent activity, unit readiness, and scheduled milestones into one view.
Before you begin
- Sign in to the correct HICSNow workspace.
- Your account must be permitted to enter the active incident.
- Confirm the incident and facility context displayed in the operational navigation before relying on the information shown.
Open the Incident Overview
Users open Incidents directly after sign-in, whether or not they have an assigned HICS Role, and cannot open the administrative dashboard. Tenant, Facility, or Super Administrators open Incident Overview automatically when they have an assigned HICS Role. An administrator without a HICS Role starts on the administrative dashboard instead.
To open it from administration:
- Select Operational command from your workspace.
- Select Incident Overview from the operational navigation.
- Confirm the incident name, status, organizational scope, and organization at the top of the page.
If your organization is managing more than one active incident, make sure the correct incident is selected before reviewing or updating operational records.
For a facility incident, the selected incident's lead facility also drives the prominent National Weather Service alert banner above the incident workspace. Without a selected incident, HICSNow uses your primary active facility. A health-system incident does not silently inherit one participating facility's weather. Open Weather under Response to see the explicit facility-specific message or select a facility incident to review conditions, alerts, outlooks, statements, and forecasts. See Monitor Facility Weather for complete weather behavior.
Operational periods and incident closure
Creating an incident establishes command but does not start Operational Period 01. Complete the applicable Incident Commander work under Initial Actions. Initial Action response-phase timeframes remain guidance and do not establish or advance an operational period. The briefing and operational-period establishment workflows will be introduced separately.
The development preview also does not yet provide controls to complete or cancel an incident. These lifecycle actions will be introduced as separate, authorized, auditable workflows in later releases. Until then, do not expect an Establish operational period, Complete incident, or Cancel incident action in Incident Overview.
Understand the overview
The page organizes the active incident into several areas:
- Immediate-attention items identify overdue actions, unfilled positions, critical acknowledgements, and the next scheduled transition.
- Incident metrics summarize open and completed actions, assigned personnel, and reporting units.
- Current Objectives shows prioritized work and reported progress.
- Incident Activity shows recent operational events.
- Command Structure shows assigned and unfilled HICS Roles.
- Unit Readiness summarizes reported personnel and equipment readiness.
- Operational Timeline is reserved for a future established operational period and remains inactive until that workflow is released.
- A prominent National Weather Service banner appears above the incident workspace when one or more active alerts apply to the facility. Weather details are available from Weather under Response without changing incident or HICS state.
Common questions
Why can I not establish an operational period or close the incident?
Those user-facing workflows are not included in the current development preview. Recording Initial Actions does not establish an operational period or close the incident.
Why can I see an incident but not change it?
Incident visibility and permission to perform an operational action are separate. Your assigned HICS Role and the incident's permissions determine the actions available to you.